Posted
by
Soulskill
on Saturday July 28, 2012 @02:25AM
from the keeping-up-with-the-googses dept.

The NY Times reports that Apple has internally discussed an investment into Twitter to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. From the article:
"There is no guarantee that the two companies, which are not in negotiations at the moment, will come to an agreement. But the earlier talks are a sign that they may form a stronger partnership amid intensifying competition from the likes of Google and Facebook. Apple has not made many friends in social media. Its relationship with Facebook, for example, has been strained since a deal to build Facebook features into Ping, Apple's music-centric social network, fell apart. Facebook is also aligned with Microsoft, which owns a small stake in it. And Google, an Apple rival in the phone market, has been pushing its own social network, Google Plus. 'Apple doesn't have to own a social network,' Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said at a recent technology conference. 'But does Apple need to be social? Yes.'"

I'm not certain what the OP meant, but I believe that Google acquiring Twitter would be a huge step forward for G+. The biggest problem that G+ has is that, while lots of people may have accounts, no one actually uses their account. If I could integrate Twitter and post to my G+, I would do so in a heartbeat. You would suddenly be taking a great deal of content from Twitter and cross-publishing it onto G+ where others could comment on it, share it, etc.